Enmaten

Enmaten is the Japanese name for Yama, one of twelve devas (celestial beings) who guard the twelve directions. He is depicted sitting on a recumbent water buffalo and holding a staff topped with a human head. This work might have been part of a set of the twelve devas, which were often placed throughout a place of worship for protection in Esoteric Buddhist rituals. This image of Enmaten is painted on the back of a sutra, which is visible through the paper. The reuse of paper has long been common in Japan, and some of the earliest examples of documents with writing on both sides date to the eighth century. The reverse of the paper appears to be commentary on the Shiji Zhengyi (The Correct Meanings of the Records of the Grand Historian), indicating that the paper originally belonged to a well-educated elite or monk.